35 posts tagged “birthday”

Nestled in the Badlands near Theodore Roosevelt National Park is the western tourist town of Medora.  In my opinion, its the most popular tourist destination in North Dakota.  Here are a few photos of the Badlands.

In Medora, they have a rustic playground. There are several souvenir shops all around town. The most popular event in Medora is the nightly musical in an outdoor amphitheater.  Before the show begins, they always have elk grazing in the background. This is at the main level of the amphitheater.  Our seats were below this and you can see the set in the background. The kids got to meet President Roosevelt. We were there on Ray's birthday.  Apparently, they knew we were coming.

Just kidding.  They were celebrating 3 birthdays:  50th for the musical, 125th for Medora, and 150th for Teddy Roosevelt.

This is the opening number.

Then, the kids got to go on stage and get birthday hats.

The set opens so you can see the beautiful scenery.

Clogging number

They have a feature entertainer that rotates every few weeks.  Ours was called the "Diving Fool".  I wasn't quite sure what that meant but it was mostly a comedy act and quite good.  Lily was laughing her head off.

The finale

 

Its a must see if you're ever in the area.  One of the newer attractions is the Bully Pulpit Golf Course.  We drove out by it and its just gorgeous.  I really hope to golf it someday. 

We had a wonderful time in Medora yesterday.  We went to their neat playground, through souvenir shops, had supper, and then went to the musical at the outdoor amphitheater.  It was the perfect night for it and I have so many great pictures that I can't wait to share.  Of course, they'll have to wait until we're back home in a week.

It was a longer drive than we anticipated from Medora and we didn't get here until 2:30 am!!  The guys have already headed out fishing as its supposed to be hot today.  The lake has come up about 10 ft. since Memorial weekend.  I'm glad I took photos then because the ones from this trip are going to show an amazing change.  The girls are heading into town for lunch and some shopping.

P.S. Gndsgang - It took an hour for us to get here from where you'll be at Trailride.  It was 1:15 am when we passed the Trailride turn off.  I'd suggest you stay in Medora or Belfield tomorrow night.

I mentioned that Ray was in Mexico City last week for work.  He didn't take a camera but had a colleague take several photos.  So far, I've only seen a few.  WARNING:  One could be considered offensive.

 

Don't say I didn't warn you!

Is it just me, or is he a little to happy to be having his picture taken with that?

Today is Ray's 37th birthday.  We celebrated by going out for supper, golf, and then back to our place for pinochle with Gndsgang.  We'll be leaving this afternoon for a week at the lake.  First, we're going to make a stop in Medora to take in their wonderful, outdoor musical.

We're home so we didn't get murdered in the Bates Motel.  In fact, we didn't even see anything exciting like Police Caution Tape. 

Rundown on the soccer games:

Jace Game 1:  This is Jace's first summer playing competitive soccer.  I hesitated to put him in since he's only 8 and he's playing at a U10 level but he definitely held his own.  They won the first game 9-6 and Jace even scored one goal!

Jace Game 2:  Tough opposition.  They lost 2-6.

Jace Game 3:  This was a very exciting game.  They came back from behind to win 3-2.  Jace played a little defense but mostly center in all of the games.  Win or lose, the parents always make a tunnel for the kids at the end of each game.

 

At U10, they all get participation medals and don't keep track of standings.

The boys voted on their team name.  The Ducklings!  What were they thinking?

Cody Game 1:  They lost 2-6.  Cody scored the only 2 goals.  The first was on a penalty kick and the 2nd was just a regular goal.

Cody Game 2:  At halftime, they were behind 1-4 and came back to end in a tie 4-4.  Cody scored 1 goal.

Cody Game 3:  This was going to be the scary one as it was against the team that throttled them at the tournament in May 0-10 where we didn't even finish.  They came out really strong and there was no score until the end of the 1st half when the opposition made one goal.  So, the halftime score was 0-1 which was amazing!!  Unfortunately, we were missing 2 of our players which meant we only had 1 extra to sub in and out and our players definitely ran out of gas.  (The other team had 5 extras).   They lost 0-5 but I still think that was a major improvement.

That's Ray & Grace at the end.  She came to watch his game.

Cody also thought he'd have some extra team spirit by having lightning bolts shaved into the side of his head.  (His team is Lightning).  Unfortunately, his hair is as light as his head so you can barely see them!

All in all, the tournament went better than I expected.  We took 2 extra boys with us so there were 7 of us in the hotel room!  For the first time, we took Rascal and he was such a little angel!  He would just sit on my lap during the games or play with the kids.  We found out mid-way through that dogs weren't allowed at the soccer complex so I just carried him and kept him on my lap.  The complex had a really nice playground.

 

 

Immediately after the last game, we took the kids and 4 of Cody's friends to an amusement park for his belated birthday party.  There, they had 2 games of laser tag, some arcade games, a round of mini golf, and pizza.  I wish I could've gotten in on the laser tag but many of the vests weren't working!

 

 

 

We got back into town just in time for Ray to drop the kids and I off at church for the start of Vacation Bible School.  I'll share about that later but boy am I exhausted!

Show us a smile.

I've shared this one before but it's one of my favorites of Jace.  He looks like he's having such a great time.

This is the kids' first trip to the beach in South Carolina. Cody after losing his first tooth.

We're packing to leave for the lake this morning.  He's going to open his presents before we go and then we'll have cake with my parents tonight.  I'll share pictures later.

My MIL lived here until 3 yrs ago and we hadn't seen her for 2 years until we flew her here this weekend.  We didn't tell the kids she was coming and they were soooo happy and surprised!  We relaxed around home Friday night.  Saturday morning, we slept in and then Ray made pancakes & sausage.  I have no idea when we last had a free Saturday.  I'm guessing it was around February!  It was great just lounging around and not having anywhere to be.  MIL and I took a few hours during the afternoon to do some shopping.  Saturday night, we took her out to our nice new restaurant, Buffalo City Grille.  We knew there wouldn't be time to go out on Mother's Day so that was our early treat.

Sunday morning, she got to see all 3 of the kids perform for the last time this year with their choirs in church.  MIL was lucky to be here one of the rare times they all sing on the same day.

For Mother's Day, both Grandma & I got Blue Tooth Adapters to connect our cell phones to our computers.  Now, I can synchronize my calendar to my phone without even taking it out of my purse.  Very cool.  I also got a very nice card from MIL in which she wrote "You are the DIL people dream of having in their lives.  But, I gotcha & I ain't sharing"!  I'm very lucky to have such a sweet MIL.

We finally had a beautiful day and we got to spend it outside at soccer games.  Jace's game was first.  It was a really tight game and Jace scored 2 goals.

 

 

After a short break, we were off to Cody's game.  He really showed off for Grandma!  I believe they won by 1 point and Cody scored 3 goals, 2 of which were highly impressive.  The first was a corner kick.  Now, Cody's made quite a few goals from corner kicks but they were all during competitive soccer with the big net.  Since they're just playing 4 v. 4 for recreational soccer, they're playing without goalies and with small nets.  I honestly didn't even think it was possible to make a corner kick into those nets!  His last score came when a teammate passed the ball to him.  The ball crossed in front of the net and was way over to the side by the time Cody got to it, but somehow, he managed to get it in the net. 

 

 

Since Grandma was here, we let Cody open his birthday present from her even though it's a few weeks early.

Last night, we went to a family dance at our church.  I'm going to share pictures from that another time.

We let the kids play hookey from school this morning to spend a little more time with Grandma before she had to catch her plane.  They taught her bowling on the Wii.

 

We had lunch at Paradiso.

"Show us a smile.

Jace around 1 year.

Lily 15 mos.

Cody age 4

What was the #1 song on the radio when you were born?

"Tiger Feet" by Mud?  Never heard of it.  For country, it was "That's the Way Love Goes" by Johnny Rodriguez.  Fun question.